copy-editor

[copy-editing] is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of a manuscript. […] Copy editing is done prior to the work of proofreaders, who handle documents before final publication.

Bloggers aren’t professional writers. Most of us don’t even re-read our posts once before publishing. We don’t have editors, and we sure as hell don’t have proofreaders. The audience gets to read what we’ve written; warts and all.

I haven’t really been writing a lot recently. I have realized that I usually write for an audience of one: myself. The problem is that it’s hard to be motivated when you’re writing for yourself; the quality of your writing suffers because of it. I have gotten into a situation where I start writing posts but never finish them. I have a lot of draft posts lying around, and no motivation to complete them.

I have a few friends who sometimes even read what I write. One can’t ask for more, but I am going to anyway.

Presenting copy-editor—an online tool to help you get your writing reviewed by your friends before you publish it. It basically is a place where I can save my (ever-increasing) draft blog posts, and can invite some friends to review them. I have a gut feeling that something like this is going to be pretty useful to a lot of people, but I’ve just built it for myself. I would be thrilled if anyone else likes it enough to use it, but I’ve got to warn everyone that it’s pretty rough right now, and I can’t guarantee that it won’t eat your data.

Also, writing it was another excuse to put-off writing actual content.

It’s built on the Google App Engine, and the source code is publicly available on my github account. I was surprised at how easy it was to write an app for the app engine; I got the idea for it this Saturday evening, played around a bit Saturday night, and had a basic version ready Sunday afternoon, which is good for one’s ego if nothing else.

Have fun, and if anyone does like it, please drop me a note.

PS: This post was first drafted over at copy-editor. Ankur had an interesting comment: too many ‘I’s’ in the text—true, and am at a loss about how to improve it. I’ve never had to re-write; it’s going to be fun to learn.